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Don't want to troll or anything, just a question from curiosity: don't you think that massive popularity of systemd is a result of a massive demand for software

Don't want to troll or anything, just a question from curiosity: don't you think that massive popularity of systemd is a result of a massive demand for software like systemd?

chx 8y ago
In short: no.
lokopodium 8y ago
"Still beats dealing with airlines" - South Park
sunseb 8y ago
No, it's because we, the users, have no other choice.
badsectoracula 8y ago
As i understand it, systemd provides some functionality that some people wanted, but not everyone was happy with how this functionality was implemented and/or provided (which included people who didn't need tht functionality in the first place) and others were annoyed by how it was pushed/promoted and became a dependency on some popular projects (e.g. Gnome) without a technical necessity for being so, feeling like it was forced on people who didn't wanted it but also making it harder to use other init systems (this is especially important since, as i already wrote, the provided functionality is desired by some people and could be provided in a better way by another init system). (note that with functionality here i do not refer to specific APIs or interfaces, but higher level functionality like "i want to be able to do XXX when YYY happens")
spiraldancing 8y ago
widespread use != massive popularity Ask your average Windows user.
tannhaeuser 8y ago
On the desktop where you need to deal with WLAN interfaces going up and down, maybe a monstrosity like systemd has its place, but even there my opinion is systemd just isn't worth fragmenting and polarizing the whole Unix ecosystem with systemd's total lack of mental discipline and attitude of wrapping each and everything under the sun including binary logging, mandatory systemd-only APIs for loggin in, cron replacement, etc. On the server-side where Linux has its mainstay, using systemd is even more pointless IMHO since services and network interfaces don't come and go. Loosing portability for saving a couple lines of shell code for starting/stopping services is IMHO a trade-off that just doesn't make sense from an engineering PoV. All the more so since systemd doesn't shield you from the intricacies of dealing with demon programs; if something is going south on your server, have fun with systemd binary logs to analyze what has happened. Now RedHat (who are shouldering a large part of Linux development anyway) sure aren't stupid; therefore I have to conclude that they're playing the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish game here to subvert Linux into SystemD-OS. Devuan has become a very important key project to prevent that from happening to the Debian code base. Btw congrats to the Devuan project! I wasn't quite sure they'd be able to deliver a couple years ago when they started; now I think Devuan (along with Gentoo, Slackware, Alpine) is going to save Linux' ass as a "real" F/OSS community effort going forward, no less. My hope is Arch Linux with its great community and documentation gets a systemd-less fork as well.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Systemd exist for two groups, macbook packing cypherpunks and devops "cattle farms". All the rest have to grin and bear it until Pottering and crew gets bored, run into those corner cases that made the older systems so gnarly to maintain, and move on.
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    I hope you're wrong on systemd on a Mac. I have to assume its being used for systemd-under-(systemd-infested-linux)-under-virtualbox or systemd-under-docker (or even systemd-under-docker-under-<systemd-infested-linux>-under-virtualbox). systemd-under-docker is particularly pointless IMHO if it's even possible. Could someone using systemd on a Mac chime in and explain the use case?
AckSyn 8y ago
Absolutely not. The init system we had was relatively fine, having worked with linux for the better part of a decade, systemd was an answer no one needed. Especially with its feature creep, stealing pid1, and being required - slowly - by other software packages. Or at the very least making it difficult to not soft require it.

Don't want to troll or anything, just a question from curiosity: don't you think that massive popularity of systemd is a result of a massive demand for software like systemd?

chx 8y ago

In short: no.

lokopodium 8y ago

"Still beats dealing with airlines" - South Park

sunseb 8y ago

No, it's because we, the users, have no other choice.

badsectoracula 8y ago

As i understand it, systemd provides some functionality that some people wanted, but not everyone was happy with how this functionality was implemented and/or provided (which included people who didn't need tht functionality in the first place) and others were annoyed by how it was pushed/promoted and became a dependency on some popular projects (e.g. Gnome) without a technical necessity for being so, feeling like it was forced on people who didn't wanted it but also making it harder to use other init systems (this is especially important since, as i already wrote, the provided functionality is desired by some people and could be provided in a better way by another init system). (note that with functionality here i do not refer to specific APIs or interfaces, but higher level functionality like "i want to be able to do XXX when YYY happens")

spiraldancing 8y ago

widespread use != massive popularity Ask your average Windows user.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

On the desktop where you need to deal with WLAN interfaces going up and down, maybe a monstrosity like systemd has its place, but even there my opinion is systemd just isn't worth fragmenting and polarizing the whole Unix ecosystem with systemd's total lack of mental discipline and attitude of wrapping each and everything under the sun including binary logging, mandatory systemd-only APIs for loggin in, cron replacement, etc. On the server-side where Linux has its mainstay, using systemd is even more pointless IMHO since services and network interfaces don't come and go. Loosing portability for saving a couple lines of shell code for starting/stopping services is IMHO a trade-off that just doesn't make sense from an engineering PoV. All the more so since systemd doesn't shield you from the intricacies of dealing with demon programs; if something is going south on your server, have fun with systemd binary logs to analyze what has happened. Now RedHat (who are shouldering a large part of Linux development anyway) sure aren't stupid; therefore I have to conclude that they're playing the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish game here to subvert Linux into SystemD-OS. Devuan has become a very important key project to prevent that from happening to the Debian code base. Btw congrats to the Devuan project! I wasn't quite sure they'd be able to deliver a couple years ago when they started; now I think Devuan (along with Gentoo, Slackware, Alpine) is going to save Linux' ass as a "real" F/OSS community effort going forward, no less. My hope is Arch Linux with its great community and documentation gets a systemd-less fork as well.

digi_owl 8y ago
Systemd exist for two groups, macbook packing cypherpunks and devops "cattle farms". All the rest have to grin and bear it until Pottering and crew gets bored, run into those corner cases that made the older systems so gnarly to maintain, and move on.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  I hope you're wrong on systemd on a Mac. I have to assume its being used for systemd-under-(systemd-infested-linux)-under-virtualbox or systemd-under-docker (or even systemd-under-docker-under-<systemd-infested-linux>-under-virtualbox). systemd-under-docker is particularly pointless IMHO if it's even possible. Could someone using systemd on a Mac chime in and explain the use case?

AckSyn 8y ago

Absolutely not. The init system we had was relatively fine, having worked with linux for the better part of a decade, systemd was an answer no one needed. Especially with its feature creep, stealing pid1, and being required - slowly - by other software packages. Or at the very least making it difficult to not soft require it.